PLD dps needs to be buffed, current dps a joke

[TouchandFeel]

@Xeno

You bring up a lot of points that I am glad somebody is finally going in to.

For starters, the statement about the content itself playing a huge part of the tank balance meta is imo incredibly important. The content should never overtly favor one tank's niche over the others, every encounter needs to be balanced around having every tank ( or any other job really) shine in certain aspects of the fight but be weaker in others, not a for X fight make sure to bring Y tank scenario.

The other point I agree with is equitability in the value of the differences between the tanks, which imo is very much not the case right now.

The reworking of debuffs for the tank jobs is an interesting idea and one I could get behind if done properly. What exactly did you have in mind for the effects for Rend Mind and Rend Weapon?

[Seku]

Why do I get this funny feeling that the 2nd set of Alexander Raids is going to offer extreme physical damage and then the bandwagon is going to jump back to PLD and shelltron.

[karateorangutang]

Favor-ability due to surviving is fine. I get that one tank might be more capable of tanking one fight over another. This has pretty much been the status quo on MMO's since they became popular.

Let's take for example my current raiding group. The group wants me to tank, but my partner tank is all in on DRK. He loves it. I can bring PLD, and by the time we get there we can probably clear it. I'm not disputing that.

However, they want me to go WAR to have access to slashing debuffs and Storm's Path. Paladin doesn't really bring anything to the table that rivals these. I state again that I don't want PLD to instantly have these abilities, but I feel that they do need something that would rival it to give groups a reason to bring that PLD OT with a DRK MT.

If someone is bringing DRK or PLD then your pretty much gonna have to break out WAR or your just throwing away great utility for the entire raid.

[SirTaint]

That's the biggest problem. Any group with a brain will want a WAR so it's a fixed job slot. The 2nd tank can be any of the 3. Giving one tank the best burst DPS, best utility debuff and best offensive debuff was a mistake.

[Ronzeru]

Every week due to a new piece of gear being unlocked, all these complaints are gonna be made more and more moot. lol

[SirTaint]

Every week due to a new piece of gear being unlocked, all these complaints are gonna be made more and more moot. lol

Why? DRK and WAR are getting the same upgrades. Yes, for current content the points will lose potency but they will still be relevant.

[Faytte]

Every week due to a new piece of gear being unlocked, all these complaints are gonna be made more and more moot. lol

Hardly. Every week the scaling of the better dps on Dark and War will mean more, and any mitigation 'concerns' they had would be made more and more irrelevant.

The main advantage of a paladin is mitigation (or so your told?) but people are clearing fine without them. Healers will HEAL more in the coming weeks, all tanks will have more hp and defenses, and dps will increase proportional to what they are at now. So as people clear and get gear, war and dark will have ----more--- of an advantage over a paladin. Paladins were progression tanks quote un quote for a reason, save you dont need them for progression anymore cause A) magic damage B) dps checks.

[Disc]

Actually the increase to PLD DPS will make it easier to hold hate in Sword Oath due to enmity multipliers, eventually allowing us to use Royal Authority more and increase damage dramatically. Especially when combined with a Ninja using Shadewalker/Smoke Screen. The advantages to using PLD over DRK are A) Simple gameplay, B) Physical Mitigation, C) Support abilities(Cover/Clemency/Stoneskin/Silence/STR down), and D) Hallowed Ground.

[Faytte]

Actually the increase to PLD DPS will make it easier to hold hate in Sword Oath due to enmity multipliers, eventually allowing us to use Royal Authority more and increase damage dramatically. Especially when combined with a Ninja using Shadewalker/Smoke Screen. The advantages to using PLD over DRK are A) Simple gameplay, B) Physical Mitigation, C) Support abilities(Cover/Clemency/Stoneskin/Silence/STR down), and D) Hallowed Ground.

...this would be true if your dps wernt ALSO getting upgrades. But they are--and their dps will grow faster than your dps. Enmity is a factor of your damage, so yes--your damage, your enmity will increase, but so will every dps--and you will be in the same boat. The way around this is what?

Bring a ninja. This basically is a requirement for a paladin and works fine in single target encounters--but not so much in aoe. A ninja can pop it on one pack in AS2 savage but wont have it up again till midway throught he fight, and with every back, you are back to staying in shield oath to struggle for aggro and only swapping back to sword at the end of the grouping (eating a gcd, eating up your mana which you were using to spam flash, etc).

On your advantages quickly.
A) yes, paladins are simple--fewer mistakes.
B) Yes--which might not be relevant largely. No physical tank busters reduce this down to auto attacks from your shield. Not enough of an advantage to mean anything--all content has been cleared without one, but AS2 and 3 are most certainly easier without them, and AS1 requires that they use Hallowed Ground, otherwise they blow up terribly. Warrior has better mitigation over time (which most physical damage currently is damage over time, not spike) and has meaningful self heals. Dark Dance (despite complaints) is better mitigation over time than bulwark--its not burst mitigation which is what we classically have wanted, but physical damage isnt the main threat (which is what we are classically trained for?).
C) All tanks have some kind of Stat down--warriors having the best, and drks having a damage down while tanking an auto attacking boss (So relevant in all content but a4, where str down does nothing) and an int down. Cover is largely useless outside turns where it was needed to cheese--which has not come up yet cause busters have been /gasp/ magical. Clemency is slower than a snail and largely made irrelevant (watch AS2 clears as a paladin, or the AS3 stream and tell me how many times you see them casting clemency? You dont even see it in AS1 cause after you take damage (Which is heavy enough to interrupt it even with full fending) that the healers have you topped off again. You are too far away to cast it on the other tank. You cant in AS2 cause you are both generally tanking. You could as an OT in AS3--but you might not meet enrage timer. AS4 remains to be seen.
D) Yep---no dispute; this is the reason you play a paladin now a days.

TLDR: You are absolutely false about how your dps is going to scale. You are going to gain the same amount of raw stats from a weapon or chest upgrade as other classes, but the fact they multiply that effect out better with their mechanics means they are going to put that to better use. Or in other terms.

If you did 700 dps currently and your raid dps did 1000 dps, and we increase your dps attributes by 10% (strength/crit/ss/det) we would expect you would go to 770 (woot) and your raid dps would do 1100 dps. You are not going to 'gain on them' unless your dps are simply not upgrading gear pieces.

Now the issue is WORSE for you if your static is getting dps drops and no tank drops (and even worse since, your str dps classes will gtet first dibs on str accessories for obvious reason).

[Disc]

...

STR down & a nice block rate are meaningful when you're taking 2-6k damage physical auto-attacks before/during/after those crazy high 3.5-6k damage founts. Those numbers are accurate by the way. DRK can reduce a few founts, but their damage taken is still higher overall than a good PLD. Plasma is a joke for both jobs. They pull ahead due to naturally higher enmity & Dark Mind/Dark Wall out of tank stance to mitigate a few extra founts out of grit, pushing their DPS higher. Dark Dance is decent when you can pop it, but completely wasted if you're losing Reprisal time because it's down.

DRKs int down is wasted in most instances if you have a MNK, STR down is universally useful outside A4. Cover is nice to use on healers to ignore Sniper enmity. Clemency is mostly useless I'll agree, but if you're worth anything a 5k heal immediately following tankbusters is massive. It's also easy to push out in A4 during ball/discoid phases when healing is most stressed. You don't see Clemency used in the videos you mention because they're pushing to beat enrages with i190 weapons, clemency will show more use for the following groups. My healers rarely heal me to full immediately following Plasma when they have to deal with two tanks taking over 10,000 damage each, unless they get a lucky crit.

10 seconds of invincibility is not something to shrug off. The job is not useless just because it's not the absolute best at every aspect of the game. It's designed to be the most defensive tank, which it is. Yes DRK can reduce more magic damage, but it's still nothing compared to a PLD really trying to turtle down. All fights now and in the future are designed to keep this trend.

It doesn't matter that the DPS are seeing increasing damage too. Savage Blade, Circle of Scorn, etc have enmity multipliers. A 300 damage increase is significant when it converts to 900+ enmity generated. That is why you can tank something like Bahamut in Sword Oath effortlessly, but then struggle to hold hate against the same DPS in A1 Savage.

It would be one thing to complain about the job if it was seriously lacking, but complaining about how it performs in world first groups is just dumb to be honest. They're more DPS oriented because they are approaching DPS checks meant for groups with better gear, and they're executing those fights perfectly to pass. QoL for healers and other members to make mistakes will be much more beneficial to many of the following groups, and a PLD will bring that.